All research starts with identifying a problem, drawing on a firm knowledge of a particular context aswell as the literature relating to the problem and its potential solutions. For music educators these problems are usually located in some aspect of their practice as teachers. It is this connection between research and practice that has been at the heart of this journal since its inception.

Technology has historically presented music educators with myriad challenges, and it is perhaps salutary to recollect that back in the 1920s and 1930s the development of the gramophone generated considerable misgivings amongst music teachers. As Colin Symes points out in his paper ‘A Sound Education’, many feared that recorded music would discourage individuals from reading books, and it was a commonly held view that the phonograph was counter-educational. With hindsight we know that this new technology affected music education profoundly, contributing to the rise of the music appreciation movement and the central place afforded to listening. It enabled music educators to broaden the tastes of the population, and eventually made accessible a range of music that had remained a closed book to Western ears.

This issue – the first of our 21st anniversary year – has two clear themes: the teaching and learning of world musics, and the assessment of musical performance and understanding. Within these themes, the papers present accounts of research at all levels of music teaching, from nursery to higher education, and range across diverse geographical contexts: Australia, China, the UK, the USA and Zambia. There is evidence here of a wide-ranging research community in music education, which would have been hard to imagine when the British Journal of Music Education was founded in 1984.

This article reports on a school-based research project into teaching composing at GCSE, setting this alongside a review of the literature. It suggests that research into cognition in composing in school students and teaching composing within a school context may be synthesised by understanding composing as problem solving. Composing is described as knowledge-rich, complex, multiple and creative problem solving, requiring the development of skills of hypothesis and verification in students. A series of case studies of individual teachers is analysed using Bernstein's framework for coding knowledge in the curriculum. Research data presented suggest that although there is significant variation in the practice of individual teachers, teaching composing is characterised in the main activities of instruction and training in composing skills and knowledge; management of a positive creative learning environment; and facilitation of ownership, autonomy and authority in students. The article concludes by suggesting that conceptualising teaching composing as problem solving enables music educators to rationalise the specific demands of the curriculum context in which they are operating by providing students with a framework for cognitive development in composing.

This article argues that changes of gendered attitudes towards IT among students may be related to recent educational reforms focusing on incorporating computers into the classroom. Data are drawn from an interview survey with 430 students attending 26 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. The results reveal no significant differences between females and males in three aspects: (1) their belief in the effectiveness of using technological facilities; (2) their confidence in handling technology when learning about music; and (3) their motivation towards learning about music with the help of information technology (IT). Primary boys and girls in this study reported obtaining a higher degree of motivation for learning about music with the help of IT than secondary students of both sexes. The potential implications of these findings for educational policy in Hong Kong are to find out how to motivate students' musical learning with the help of IT, and to make technology relevant to the content of the music programmes of primary and secondary schools.

The general aim of this article is to explore South Asian music and culture in an educational context. The fieldwork on which it is based mainly consists of semi-structured interviews with pupils of South Asian origin (aged 11–18) who attend a secondary school in Ilford, Essex. The learning methods of South Asian musicians are considered and a detailed investigation of the socio-cultural environment in which these learning methods are related is undertaken, focusing on the role that music plays in the formation of concepts of culture, ‘identity’ and ‘place’. The majority of the musical material is drawn from the South Asian genre of bhangra, concentrating on the improvisations and rhythms of dhol players.

The advent of the gramophone transformed the cultural conditions of contemporary music, including the way it was taught. For a considerable period of time, musicians and music educators disparaged the gramophone. The members of the musical appreciation movement were more sympathetic and helped transform the gramophone's educational image during the 1920s and 1930s. They argued that the gramophone, contrary to its detractors, might stem the appeal of popular music. As is clear from the sentiments of those espousing the pedagogic uses of the gramophone – which are analysed in this paper – their advocacy went far beyond music and was part of a broader cultural agenda, which included arresting the moral dangers associated with popular music.

The purpose of the study is to examine, through interviews and observations, the extent to which 8–10 year old children in a London primary school replicate gendered musical practices and experience gendered musical meanings, and how these may affect their expectations and the specific practices and products of their composition. I also consider how primary school teachers participate in the overarching discourse on gender and music education, by examining their expectations about the nature of girls' and boys' compositions. I analyse my findings in relation to Lucy Green's model of gendered musical meaning and experience. One outcome of the analysis is the development of a concept of ‘female musical subculture’ to interpret girls' and women's participation in the compositional world. Secondly, the findings strongly suggest that in their musical practice, the children in the research are not reproducing ideological assumptions about gendered musical practices, which contradicts how they operate discursively, for their discourse lies within the bounds of gendered musical ideology. Thirdly, the findings also indicate that the teachers are strongly affected by gendered musical ideologies, and have concomitant expectations about the music girls and boys produce.

This paper focuses on the establishment of a curriculum model, as part of a larger study concerning the role of Chinese music in secondary school education in Hong Kong. The study employed a two-pronged approach, consisting of (i) a questionnaire survey conducted among 209 secondary school music teachers, and (ii) interviews with 26 professionals from the cultural sector of Hong Kong. From the results a curriculum model was established which underpins a comprehensive approach to the teaching of Chinese music. This model could further be adapted to address general problems in the selection of curriculum content and teaching approaches.

This paper is the result of a research project that set out to document a group of adolescent musicians in a rural Australian secondary school as they wrote and performed their own music. The processes they developed are reflective of a cooperative approach to group composition where upwards of 21 students composed and ‘jammed’ their way through a weekly rehearsal. There appeared to be strong links not only to the theoretical field of cooperative learning, but also to the ‘garage’ rock band model of peer-led composition and group processing. The participants completed a six-month programme of interviews, questionnaire and narrative writing tasks, as well as participating in the video recording of their weekly rehearsal. This paper focuses on two of the senior members, Sarah and Matt, and their reflections on the process of songwriting as a group and the significance of the relationships between the student members and the staff. The participants identified a middle ground occupied by ‘Jungle Express’, the name the students gave to themselves, between their mainstream school environment and their peer groups. This paper identifies the significance of using a cooperative approach with adolescent musicians and the high level of personal investment in, and identification with, the musical product that emerges.

This article describes inshimi – a musical storytelling practice of the Bemba people in Zambia. It gives a general perspective on the whole practice and some details on the ‘MUSIC’ as contained in the practice. The article further encourages the idea that inshimi represents a nucleus of the ‘MUSIC’ practices of the Bemba people and therefore plays a vital role in the transmission of musical arts practices. Embedded in musical storytelling are educational principles that could and should guide musical arts education in Africa and the rest of the world.

This article describes an innovative approach to analysing, describing and evaluating the careers of musicians, and applies it in the case of 37 ‘professors’, that is, instrumental teachers, working at a conservatoire in the UK. The professors emerge as flexible and committed musicians who enjoy teaching conservatoire students, and who nearly all feel that they benefit musically and personally from this work.

Numerous studies in general education have concluded that parental involvement improves student achievement. Research in music education indicates that parental involvement is beneficial to progress on a musical instrument. However, few music teachers are known to actively encourage it. This paper reports on a detailed qualitative survey that examines teachers', pupils' and parents' attitudes to parental involvement, the extent and nature of that involvement, and pupils' resultant enjoyment and achievement.

The survey found that, while pupils and parents alike welcome parental involvement, some teachers encourage this collaboration and some do not. Teachers who (a) have pedagogical qualifications, (b) have followed specialist courses, and (c) are experienced, prove more likely to encourage parental involvement.

This paper reports the development of a discrimination task to investigate the sensitivity of children aged 3–8 years to a range of timbral stimuli. The paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of other research exploring timbral perception and explains how the findings from these studies shaped the methodological approach of this study. Specifically, it describes how the qualitative data collected gave rise to deeper insights concerning the quantitative data, so questioning the rationale of continuing research in this area through a single quantitative methodological approach.

This paper examines how body movement within the frames of Dalcroze Eurhythmics can facilitate musical knowing. Merleau-Ponty's philosophical ideas seem to correspond with the specific empirical findings of Jaques-Dalcroze. Hence, our viewpoint is based on Merleau-Ponty's notions of ‘knowing the world through the body’ as well as of gesture, habit and reversibility. We argue, along with Merleau-Ponty, that the body is our primary mode of knowing. Furthermore, we suggest that body movement represents pre-reflective knowing and can be understood as physical metaphor in the process of musical understanding from the concrete doing/musicing to the abstract and (or) conceptual.

In this short article I present a case for developing a new theory of music education, arguing that advances in music technology have undermined some of the most basic conceptual frameworks we currently possess. I describe some problems that might make the development of a new theory difficult and suggest some ways in which they might be overcome. My hope is that this paper will inspire people to consider the development of such a theory.

Breathing and breath control are central to playing the oboe, yet few detailed educational resources are available to support their teaching and learning. This paper presents a review of existing knowledge and expertise in the field. It highlights common ground and points of controversy, and indicates some key areas for consideration. It points to the need for further research to establish both a more detailed picture of the anatomy and physiology of breathing practices in playing and effective teaching and learning strategies.